The Horizontal Time Code

After three years and three days at the helm of Latvia's Government, Prime Minister Aigars Kalvītis (left) at long last submitted his resignation. This length of time in office may not seem so long to some in other countries -- but it's actually the longest term ever served in that office in the history of the Republic of Latvia (with the exception of Ulmanis' fourth and last term... but that was lengthened only by a coup less than two months into the "Leader's" fatal administration, which became a dictatorship in 1934). Kalvītis liked to call himself "the guarantor of stability," so let's call it an era... in the hope that it's over.

The symbol of the era, besides the bloated face of the man himself, will probably be etched into historical memory by Lagzdiņa žests -- "Lagzdiņš's gesture" (right); MP Jānis Lagzdiņš of Kalvītis' ruling People's Party showed the people what the political élite thinks of them after Parliament chose the new President (originally picked at a secret meeting in the Rīga Zoo), gesturing from the windows at the crowd gathered below (he later explained that the gesture was directed at an old army buddy). We're not a trusting people, and there has been a widening gap between the rulers and the ruled ever since independence was restored (one recalls another "gesture" -- Birkavs' use of reņģēdāji, "eaters of pilchard," to refer to the poor and powerless -- I think of that one often because not a few old women are lined up for the stinking, rotten variety at the market, and it's not for their cats)... but Kalvītis' three years in power have been marked by a nihilistic cynicism unmatched even by the most extreme Latvian standards. Trust in every institution, from the courts to the post office, has collapsed. Easy credit, inflation, and emigration to greener pastures have soared.

The Prime Minister's departure is accompanied by one of the saddest and most revealing scandals ever -- the sudden postponement by LTV, national television, of a documentary about Vladimir Putin, the guarantor of stability next door. "The cassette broke" -- or, to be specific, there was a problem with the horizontal taimkods. Or there was a problem with the translation. Well, the obvious truth will out -- surprise, surprise: the documentary was pulled because it was offensive to the realm of Lt. Col. Putin, and therefore potentially threatening to the successful completion of the very last phase of the Border Agreement (the exchange of documents, tentatively scheduled for December 18th).

Kalvītis' misrule has led to the "moderate" "Russian party," Harmony Center, becoming the most popular grouping in the opinion polls (which doesn't mean that much -- with our sixty-odd parties [none of them with real grass-roots support except perhaps for the aging Fatherlanders /part of Kalvītis' coalition/, who showed their truly patriotic wing who's boss a week ago by rejecting the decent candidate for leadership] -- "popularity" in Latvia is measured in the teens even for the most popular list, if that). Harmony Center has given us Ābrams Kleckins, Chair of the National Radio and Television Council. "There is no propaganda in Russia," quoth Kleckins. According to this august expert in journalism (who trained many of our journalists at the University), pulling the movie wasn't censorship -- after all, there are many Russian voters here, so we ought to avoid influencing Vova's campaign.

We would then become a guberniya, I guess. The trumpets of Russian joy are everywhere these days -- H.E. Ambassador Kalyuzhny, known for his Soviet delight in trying to order a free press around (and for his Stalinist distortions of history), has even been talking about free gas for Latvia!

Aleks at All About Latvia writes more of our betweenness. The trouble is, of course, that you can't be between real democracy and managed democracy. A coalition run from the shadows by shadowy oligarchs, like Kalvītis', prevents us from knowing where our country is going (other than to Ireland).

Kleckins has announced a new "analytical" program for LTV -- like Globuss was in occupied oops I mean Soviet Latvia (wouldn't want to offend the neighbors or lower turnout in flourishing Chechnya, where it was a very democratic 99,5%). The aim would be to reduce the pesky sensationalism of Latvian journalists, it seems. Positivism, anyone? Ulmanis loved Dale Carnegie...

What's positive? Well, we're not in Russia yet. There was an outcry. Kalvītis is leaving. People go sing songs to defend the rule of law, despite the snow. Kalvītis is leaving. Long live Kalvītis! Voter turnout is still very high. (The era is not over.) Kalvītis is leaving. Ardievu, Cūkmen!

The title is taken from an editorial by the filmmaker Laila Pakalniņa. The photos, of unknown provenance, are from this site, devoted to cynical Lettish humor (it's better in Latvian).

The Revolution Devours Its Own Children

Die Revolution ist wie Saturn, sie frißt ihre eignen Kinder. -- Georg Büchner, Dantons Tod

Among the ca. 70 000 Latvians killed in the Soviet Union seventy years ago were many fervent and prominent Bolsheviks, ranging from the creator of Dalstroy, Eduards Bērziņš, to the "perpetual dissident" Linards Laicens. The author of remarkable love lyrics like Ho-Tai, Laicens, "who could only be in eternal opposition," became a diehard Red in independent Latvia, departing for the Soviet Union after various stints in prison. Uldis Ģērmanis describes his sorry fate with style (and error) in Zili stikli, zaļi ledi (Blue Glass, Green Ice, an account of Ģērmanis' visit to occupied Latvia to research the Riflemen) -- Laicens' ashes were scattered in the unclaimed remains section of the Don cemetery in Moscow. Ģērmanis wonders whether he thought of his earlier "bourgeois" convictions (the author of what may be the first detailed demand for the Republic, Laicens repudiates his "errors" in an essay that can be found in his 1959 collected works -- collected minus his nationalistic writings, of course, though the poet had been "rehabilitated" during the Thaw).

Another victim was Gustavs Klucis, a pioneer of political photo montage and a leader of the Constructivist avant-garde. More of his work can be seen here; additional biographical information in English can be found here. The director Pēteris Krilovs is about to release a film entitled Nepareizais latvietis (The Wrong Latvian). A trailer for the film -- in English -- can be viewed here.

In Latvian, here is a text entitled "Latvieši - Staļina upuri un bendes" -- "Latvians -- Stalin's victims and executioners."

"Glory to the Imperial Behemoth!"

Darkness at Noon ran some photographs and descriptions of an anti-Estonian demonstration in Moscow, whence the slogan I am taking for the title of this post. Like most of Europe, Latvia marks the defeat of Nazism on 8 May. Russia celebrates the Soviet victory over fascism a day later, on 9 May (a day that is marked as Europe Day in Latvia, celebrating the Schuman Declaration of 1950 and not Stalin's victory five years before). The difference in dates is not trivial -- rather, the difference is part of what Oleg Ken of the European University in Saint Petersburg, Russia, describes as "un lourd héritage":

Stalin's strategy of political technology was that of designing the historical memory of this and next generations by a preventive purge of the history itself. [...] By cutting corners and patching up some lapses, he established control over the memory of future generations. Of course, this could not be attained without the collaboration of Russian society, a willing hostage of its own superiority complex.

Following the events in neighboring Estonia in the media and the blogosphere, one cannot help but be struck by the accuracy of Dr. Hist. Ken's analysis if we're to apply it to the flood of propaganda being poured upon Tallinn. Ken writes of "the theocratic dimension of the Soviet system." In Russia, the language never changed. Vladimir Socor, writing at Eurasia Daily Monitor:

Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov denounces Estonia for “spitting on these values” [evidently Soviet ones] and behaving “disgustingly.” The Duma’s International Affairs Committee chairman, Konstantin Kosachev, accuses Estonia of “barbarism” and “lying.” These and other Russian officials mix the bullying language with the familiar neo-Soviet mysticism that defends “sacred” objects [the Bronze Soldier as a substitute icon] against “blasphemy” [by Estonian unbelievers in this case]. Those two key words are recurrent in Russian officials’ statements during this crisis.

Though the dependably insightful Socor and some others (especially Shawn Macomber at The American Spectator) sympathize with the Estonian position, it's not only the homines sovietici and their offspring, primarily Russophones (whether extremists, nationalists, or even liberals like Yevgenia Albats [link in Russian]) who perpetuate a false view of history -- a falsified view, to be exact. The attempt to "balance" Stalinist distortions with historical fact, for instance in the style of Deutsche Welle, doesn't lead to balance at all, and the typical Western European (please forgive me for still using that term -- unfortunately, for Latvia [but less so for Estonia], "Eastern European" still fits) reaction to recent events tends to include a nod to "respect" for "the Russians' view," despite the fact that said view is very often infected with said lamentable, perverse, and intentional distortions.

Again, look at the language that's once again au courant. Not only did Estonia "desecrate" a tomb (by moving unmarked graves from a well-trodden bus stop to a cemetery following identification of the bodies and a church service?) -- Estonia is "rehabilitating fascism." Just for fun, I perused my collection of old Soviet history books this morning. I'm afraid that many of those who lacked the sacred privilege of indoctrination don't realize that "fascist" in the Soviet lexicon, and in the Russian lexicon today, is practically a synonym for "Balt." It might be difficult for the uninitiated Western European to distinguish between the broad terms that make Soviet historiography unreadable in their density -- "bourgeois," "anti-Soviet," "enemy of the people," "fascist." Maybe that's because the definitions are indeed indistinct. Let's move to verbs -- "rewriting" history. "Revising" the outcome of the War. Excuse me, but should we, in some perverse allegiance to the "theocratic dimension of the Soviet system," stick to Stalin's scriptures? The outcome of the War has been revised, Gott sei dank. The outcome of the War was the enslavement of half of Europe by forces directed from the Kremlin, where Lt. Col. Putin, a proud KGBeshnik who thinks the collapse of the USSR was "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th C" rules today -- perhaps we should also pretend to see the fall of the Soviet Union as a catastrophe, here in the Baltics?

On 8 May, I always read Pēteris Ērmanis' poem about the rejoicing when the War ended -- driven into exile (like my parents -- my mother studied under him in a displaced persons camp), he wept; he saw and felt how happy everyone in Prague and The Hague and Paris was that the horrors brought about by Hitler and Stalin had ended, but he knew all too well that the horrors had only begun for his nation.

Many of the Russian propaganda sites, e.g., Komsomolskaya Pravda, stick to the scriptures -- indeed, scripture says that "the Great Patriotic War" started in 1941. Most of the monuments foisted upon us, like one of the memorials here in Daugavpils, bear that date as a beginning, graven in granite -- after all, according to that view, we were "bourgeois" and/or "fascists" until we "voluntarily" joined the Soviet Union. In reality (yes, reality) the Baltic states went to hell when Stalin colluded with his friend Hitler, 22 months before. The gruesome photographs I chose to illustrate this post are from Masļenki -- details here.

Unlike Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia was never defeated. It fell apart due to rot, and so Russia has never faced its history -- unlike Germany, it wasn't forced to. Most of the ethnic Russians in Latvia, like Russia the state, deny the occupation. The idea that we could "let bygones be bygones" doesn't hold water -- Giustino, when he wrote "How do they not know that their former prime minister Jaan Tõnisson was most likely executed by NKVD in 1941?" was sadly prophetic -- rioting Russophones in Estonia tried to torch a Tõnisson statue last week. The feeble crucifix erected at Masļenki was also set afire some time ago -- the location is now in Russia, and Latvia is about to legitimize that theft.

The illustrious analyst Atis Lejiņš called the day when the Latvian Parliament failed to produce a resolution supporting Estonia the darkest day in the history of our restored independence. It didn't stop there -- even the Writers' Union, once a cradle of the Awakening, failed to adopt such a declaration -- the poetess submitting the resolution, Margita Gūtmane (who heavily influenced me by her writing from adolescence), was derided as "a foreigner" (though she repatriated long ago), and Estonians were called, derisively, "Scandinavians" (this is, I suppose, what Ilves gets back for the nasty comments he made anent Baltic unity some time ago). I guess we're too busy selling out to care about our northern neighbor. Or -- not we but our Government. The film director Laila Pakalniņa read our Prime Minister's words over and over again -- we would like to be as sovereign as, asking whether this was a complex Fenno-Ugric grammatical form or recognition of the fact that we really aren't sovereign... her conclusion was that we could at least support Estonia's sovereignty, though we lack it and though Russia is displeased with its breadth and depth.

So here we are. Some are predicting a televized rebellion on "Victory Day." I think it deeply regrettable that there's so much blasphemy around -- do please forgive me for blaspheming the blasphemers! Russians, and the many others (many Balts included) whose loved ones died in the fight against Nazism, have every right -- and indeed the obligation -- to mourn and respect the sacrifices of their soldiers. The same rights and obligations that Balts (some Russians included) have to mourn the sacrifices of those who served in the Latvian and Estonian Legions in their fight against Bolshevism. What nobody has a right to do is to glorify the murderous imperial behemoth, be it Hitlerite or Stalinist. There is nothing sacred about the falsification of history.